The restaurant will kick off operations at 4 PM on Friday, April 6, 2018, at 4168 Juniata Street in Tower Grove South. The opening is a bit later than anticipated because of the Easter holiday, owner David Dresner says.

Crispy Edge will be open from 4 PM to 10 PM on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, offering patrons a taste of its “global potstickers,” or internationally-themed dumplings fillings such as duck confit and Andouille sausage.

The restaurant opening marks a professional milestone for Dresner, a local entrepreneur and graduate of Washington University’s Olin School of Business. After graduation, Dresner started Sleeve a Message, a business that printed messages on cardboard coffee sleeves. The company has more than 4,500 active clients in 50 states. It printed 40 million sleeves in 2017.

Dresner drew on his experience with Sleeve a Message to start Crispy Edge. The latter business started as a USDA-regulated factory with standard operating procedures on how to make potstickers. Dresner combined a love of food with a passion for pot stickers to get Crispy Edge up and running.

After hosting a few pop-ups, Dresner decided to open a Crispy Edge restaurant. Last year, he brought on Tori Foster, a Johnson & Wales graduate with a master’s in nutrition from St. Louis University, as the restaurant’s head chef.

Tori Foster and Jesse Stuart

Dresner recently hired Jesse Stuart as Crispy Edge’s Director of Operations. Stuart, who worked for Dresner at Sleeve a Message, brings an extensive background in restaurant hospitality to the table. He has a B.A. in Hospitality Management from Missouri State University and has worked at hotels and restaurant such as Chase Park Plaza and Branson, MO-based Big Cedar Lodge.

Dresner doesn’t plan to stop with the first location of Crispy Edge. Eventually, he wants to open more restaurants “to spread the word, expand the brand,” Dresner said in this interview with SLM in December. He’s also developing a line of fully-cooked, non-shelf-stable frozen pot stickers and a microwaveable version of the product.